The smells of breakfast floated up from a fellowship room minutes before a Mass on Sunday celebrating 100 years of St. Sabina Catholic Church, while from upstairs near the sanctuary, the wail of a bagpiper warming up his instrument floated down.

In glass cases on the wall of a hallway were black-and-white photographs of decades of history at the South Side landmark.

An image of the current church's interior when it was constructed by Irish families in 1933. A picture of a young African-American boy holding a "March on Washington" sign in a church aisle in 1963. A photo from a visit by Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa in 2002.

"Do you like our church?" a senior member of the congregation called enthusiastically to a visitor.

What unfolded next was very St. Sabina, a church that has become a Chicago original in its stand for social justice and against the city's ongoing struggle with violence. The celebration service included African-style drumming, a four-man mariachi band, the bagpipes and for a few moments, the Rev. Michael Pfleger at a keyboard in a yellow-gold robe.

An interpretive dance troupe swayed as the choir belted "Lift him up!" and one of its members waved a giant white flag. It was a powerful visual, although throughout its decades, St. Sabina has done almost everything but surrender.

The congregation began meeting in a storefront on South Racine Avenue in 1916 before building a meeting hall and the current church building on 78th Place in the Gresham neighborhood. And in a period of white flight from the South Side decades later, the church was slated for closure.

Enter Pfleger, a priest who apologizes for none of his church's activism or Masses that are more like Southern Baptist services that happen to be taking place in a Catholic cathedral. At its helm since 1981, Pfleger has regularly been at odds with church leaders and was briefly suspended in 2011 after making statements that he would leave the church if transferred.

Pfleger has earned a national following for his political activism, lately becoming the inspiration for a pastor character in the Spike Lee film "Chi-Raq" and calling for Gov. Bruce Rauner to call in the National Guard to help squelch violence here.

At the end of one rousing song Sunday, TV news cameras rolled as Pfleger encouraged the full sanctuary to be as loud as they liked in a place he told them has never been "a business-as-usual church."

St. Sabina Catholic Church celebrates is 100th anniversary on Oct. 2, 2016.

(Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

"Nobody at Wrigley Field tells somebody to be quiet while the Cubs game is going on!" he said, adding if someone can yell there, "Then you ought to be able to shout for the one who redeemed you!"

Pfleger's homily was a history lesson of the church. He recounted tales of the sanctuary's construction during the Great Depression as well as his own activism, which included run-ins with the authorities for spray-painting billboards that advertised alcohol near schools, reaching out to prostitutes on Racine and leading anti-violence marches.

St. Sabina has welcomed black dignitaries from Winnie Mandela to the late Harold Washington to a local community organizer named Barack Obama. "I don't know what he ended up doing with his life," Pfleger deadpanned.

The arc of the church has gone from a predominantly Irish congregation and a priest who once donned a garment with gold thread to a mostly black congregation and T-shirts that read "Straight Outta Sabina" he said to applause. Both were on display near the altar Sunday.

The church's welcoming posture and message of peace have resonated, parishioners said.

"It's like being at home here," said Karen Miller, 62, who has attended since the 1980s. "It's a family. We come here to be refueled."

Among those in attendance at the celebration was city Treasurer Kurt Summers, who has been attending for more than two years. He, like many, praised what Pfleger has done to make the church reflect its community and stand as a beacon there.

"He's pretty amazing," Summers said.

Moments before, Pfleger had invited all of the schoolchildren in the pews to come forward to stand near the altar. He gave each a bronze-colored baton as a symbol that they will take the church forward and be St. Sabina's future.

Pfleger had already told everyone there what that would mean, being in a church that welcomes drug dealers, prostitutes, Ph.D.s, the homeless, gays, Jews, Muslims, Christians and everyone else, too. St. Sabina won't just condemn gang members to end the scourge of violence, he said, it will offer them education and jobs.

"If that makes people angry, then go get mad," Pfleger said. "Jesus made people mad."